Being a board game blogger for Club Fantasci and Geek Eccentric is a true blessing for me. It takes away the stress of my real job and allows me to promote something I truly love, board games. I also blog on four other sites for the music and entertainment business and have been doing so for many years to great success.

Unfortunately, when you promote your blog, you have to deal with people who think they know how to do EVERYTHING better than you do. People who have absolutely no experience in what they are talking about but somehow think they should be commenting on your blogs I guess because of free speech or something. Or they tell you how you should be marketing yourself even though, they aren’t a blogger or marketer with vast amounts of experience in the field and probably don’t fit the “normal” person who reads the blogs anyway.

While every now and then I try to accommodate some of the suggestions, it never works out. Why? Because I already know what I am doing, I know my numbers, and I know what makes people click on my links. So for all you people out there who don’t understand this, it is the number of clicks that allows us to blog and get people to want us to review their product. Without the clicks on the links, we quit blogging as it is seriously time intensive and a lot more work than you think especially just promoting it. If you don’t like to click links, then by all means don’t but please quit telling us how to do our job and discouraging others from clicking our links just because you don’t like to. In other words, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all. Just pass on by and leave the commenting to those that actually enjoy or appreciate the work being done.

The other annoying thing is the kid who lives in the basement with his mom and works at Starbucks who thinks he knows more than you do type of asshat. Most people don’t take time to read your resume’ they just assume you don’t have any idea what you are doing and they feel it’s their responsibility to point that out for you. Let me say this to all you who think I can’t back up my blog or statistics. Business owner for 15+ years, Wealth Manager for 10 years so that is where my financial statistics come from, board gamer for +13 years. I have put together well over 250 business plans and I run and entertainment agency that specializes in marketing, social media, artist and event promotion. In other words, I am an expert on marketing, social media and business. So I will most certainly go with my experience over anyone else’s unless of course they are an expert that I know and recognize but then we usually already talk and exchange ideas anyway.

As per the board game forums, there is a lot of snarky ass people on reddit and Board Game Geek but also in forums in general every where. For those of you who tend to not read the original post and stay on topic or take the time to figure out the intent, don’t comment. You just look like an asshat. For those of you who think you know better than the poster, don’t comment. You just look like an asshat. For those of you who can post with some awesome ideas and suggestions and are mature enough to actually act like an adult in the forums THANK YOU! Please do comment and help make it a pleasurable conversation! We love you!

You see many of you think that public forums are open to what ever you have to say, and while technically that may be true, just because you have a keyboard, doesn’t mean you should use it. Quit ruining the spirit of other peoples posts with your snarky ass attitudes. People don’t post stuff for you to be all negative and bring down posts. If you have nothing nice to say, shut the hell up! Move along, there is nothing to see here.

We do this because we want to share our love of boardgames. Not your favorite board games but board games in general. It’s a public service. We don’t get paid for it. We don’t ask for much other than hopefully, a like, +1 or share depending on what social media site you are on and we greatly appreciate any those things as well as the kind words and support that many of you give.

Using forums responsibly, do your research before blowing hot air out your ass and contribute to posts instead of being an asshat is the best way to go for everyone involved.

Cloud Atlas is a difficult book to pin down, a difficult book to explain in any way that makes sense, and ultimately difficult to read.

The book is actually six intertwined stories. Each story is interrupted halfway, and each successive character, further along in history, knows something of the previous character. As the story of the last character completes, he learns the rest of the story of the character previous to him, and so on until we arrive back at the end of the first character’s story.

The first character is Adam Ewing, a public notary on-board a ship in the South Pacific in 1850, whose story is recorded as journal entries.

Robert Frobisher takes over the second story. He is a struggling bisexual musician disowned by his father in 1931 and seeking employment in Belgium with dying composer Vyvyan Ayrs. His story is told by means of letters to his old lover Rufus Sixsmith, and he mentions the discovery of half the journal of Adam Ewing.

Luisa Rey, a journalist in 1975, meets Rufus Sixsmith and subsequently investigates the safety of a nuclear power plant. She receives half of Frobisher’s letters from Sixsmith. Her story is told in the style of a mystery thriller.

Timothy Cavendish, the fourth character, is a vanity publisher in Britain in the present day, who flees his gangster creditors and is tricked by his brother into a nursing home from which he must escape. During the course of his story, he reads a book submission – Half-Lives: the First Luisa Rey Mystery.

The fifth character, Somni~451, is a genetically modified clone in the future. She was designed and created specifically to serve in Papa Song’s restaurants for a period of 12 years, after which each server is released to paradise in Hawaii. Clones are created specific to their role, unable to reproduce, or even think in many cases, and kept sedated and docile to serve the whims of the ‘purebloods’. This story is set in Neo So Copros, which turns out to be Korea, but the ‘corpocracy’ (corporate culture elevated to the status of religion) appears to be world-wide, with references to Africa as a ‘Production Zone’. Her story is told as the recordings of a condemned woman’s last words, and during her tale she mentions watching a film, ‘The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish’.

The sixth character, Zachry, exists in a post-apocalyptic world which has descended back into a largely uncivilised state with limited technological resources. Somni is the goddess to whom his people pray, and during the course of his life, he watches the recordings of Somni’s last words and learns the truth about her. It is at the end of his tale, when he sits down to watch the last half of Somni’s tale, that the order of stories reverses.

While this is clever, and well-executed, and each character has their own distinct voice and way of speaking, it also doesn’t make for the easiest read. Adam Ewing uses the dialect of the time, making it hard to read and difficult to engage. As the first story, it made it difficult for me to get into the book. The last character, Zachry, also uses a distorted version of our language and this was extremely difficult for me to understand at first, although I found eventually my brain became accustomed to it and read it easily.

Once I moved on to Frobisher’s letters, I was far more engaged in the story and keen to keep reading, but each story broke off at a critical point. While this is a common technique to hook the reader, in this case I didn’t know if I was ever going to come back to that character, and I was reluctant to engage with the next character. By the time I came back to each story, particular Frobisher and Ewing, I found I couldn’t even recall what had happened.

The prose is flawless, but perhaps too obviously so, remaining in the foreground to flaunt itself rather than fading invisibly into the background and leaving the reader to enjoy the story. As for enjoying the story, while I did enjoy it, not as much as I could have done. Some of the characters are obviously doomed from the beginning, making it difficult to really commit to that character, and ultimately I found I didn’t care about their ends.

Part of that, I think, is that the book isn’t obviously about anything. After some thought, I had to conclude that what the book was about was the human predilection to violence and selfishness at the expense of our fellows. A worthy topic, but hardly one that inspires enjoyment. A story should be about its characters, so the reader connects with them, empathises with them, and cheers them on.

Many other speculative fiction books deal with difficult topics – Pratchett, for example, deals with racism through the device of speciesism in the city of Ankh-Morpork and specifically the issue of which species can apply to be in the City Watch. But never would anyone pick up a Discworld book and declare ‘this book is about racism’. Because it’s not, it’s about the characters, with themes of racism. Cloud Atlas, however, is about its themes, because the stories are only incidental to the theme. The characters and their ends are not important in and of themselves, but only as a means to make a point.

I’m not saying the book isn’t well-written. It is, impressively so, and the author pulls of literary feats that are technically awesome. I’m not saying the book isn’t enjoyable. It is, and I did, but perhaps not in the same way that I enjoy my favourites.

However, I do believe the book was written for a very select audience, and if you’re not part of that audience, you might not appreciate this book. I don’t believe I’m part of that audience, and while the book was generally enjoyable, perhaps not enough to make up for the effort required to read it.

Ciara is a writer of high fantasy. A fantasy lover from her early years, this loyal, passionate, quirky, strong-willed, confident woman is bent on world domination and already has a couple of minions in the making. Born argumentative and recognizing the long road to make money out of writing, Ciara wisely invested her natural inclinations in a career in law. Her favourite authors include Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan and Brent Weeks. She is the official dragon expert of #stabbylove.

Haven Town is under attack! The Shadowrift has expelled hordes of monsters upon the town threatening total annihilation. The villagers are scrambling to defend their homes from Drow, Glacien, Zombies, Storm Lords, Necromancers, Demons and Fire Dragons. How will Haven Town survive? Who will step up and be the Heros of Haven Town? Do you have the skills, strategy and magic to protect Haven Town? You better hurry before Haven Town is full of corpses and everything is in flames.

With this review I am going to do things a bit different the reason being as that the rule book for this game is so bad I don’t even want to consult it for this review so I will tell you about my game experience instead.

Shadowrift is a game from first time game designer Jeremy K. Anderson and while his first attempt at the rule book fell short (as is to be expected for a first time designer) his game didn’t. Shadowrift is a completely different deck-building game experience than any other I have encountered and that is a good thing!

In Shadowrift the players have the job of working as a team to protect Haven Town from total destruction from the creatures clamoring through the Shadowrift hell bent on wiping out Haven Town and everyone in it. This game is a truly co-operative affair in which strategy is paramount to actually fend off the denizens and come out on top. In a typical deck-builder, you may have to have light interaction with other players with the exception of a few LCG’s (Living Card Games) from Fantasy Flight Games.

As the Heroes in Shadowrift not only are you attempting to build a strong and powerful deck to use but you are also fighting monsters as well as building a separate deck for Haven Town in which you may have infiltrators, monster effects or a town full of dead bodies that slow that decks effectiveness with junk or even frozen areas of town that have to be freed up in order for the villagers to be helping the heroes with special villager card powers or benefits they may tap into. So in effect you have a trifecta approach to deck-building that is completely new and unique in my experience. It provides all kinds of interesting situations for the Heroes to have to decide what to do and in what order.

The squad building rules for X-Wing™ offer tremendous flexibility in your squad designs. Your squad isn’t just a combination of starships. It’s also the pilots and upgrades you choose to assemble. These interactions between ships, pilots, and upgrades mean that you can really steer a squad to your preferred style of play, even with a limited number of ships. In fact, two squads fielding the same starships may bear only a superficial resemblance to each other; even though they look alike, they may pursue wildly different strategies in the heat of battle.

Two upcoming starfighters will soon expand your customization options even further. The B-Wing and TIE Bomber Expansion Packs are set to enter the fast-paced space battles of X-Wing as the game’s most upgradeable and heavily customizable small ships.

A man broken in body and spirit, Cazaril returns to the noble household he once served as page and is named secretary-tutor to the beautiful, strong-willed sister of the impetuous boy who is next in line to rule. It is an assignment Cazaril dreads, for it must ultimately lead him to the place he most fears: the royal court of Cardegoss, where the powerful enemies who once placed him in chains now occupy lofty positions.

But it is more than the traitorous intrigues of villains that threaten Cazaril and the Royesse Iselle here, for a sinister curse hangs like a sword over the entire blighted House of Chalion. And only by employing the darkest, most forbidden of magics can Cazaril hope to protect his royal charge — an act that will mark him as a tool of the miraculous . . . and trap him in a lethal maze of demonic paradox.

We will be discussing this book on August 30th at 7:30pm CST. Make sure to join us here to watch the hangout and tweet us @ClubFantasci to join in on the conversation!

Call of Cthulhu The Card Game (referred to as CoC throught this review) is a LCG (Living Card Game) from Fantasy Flight Games originally released in 2008 with many “Asylum Pack Expansion Cycles” previously release but later discontinued and replaced with currently five different “Deluxe Expansions” which is great news for people just getting into the game. These “Deluxe Expansions” allow the players to build much stronger decks to either stop the horrors that are terrorizing the world or to dominate the investigators and reek havoc on their plane of existence.

In CoC the players take on the roles of courageous investigators or nightmarish horrors to succeed in accomplishing their dangerous and horrific missions while battling the opposition for control. They do this by fighting for Story Cards that are randomly selected and three are laid out on the game board. The first player to get three Story Cards wins the game or the first player to run out of cards in their draw deck immediately lose the game. Discards piles are not shuffled back into their decks.

Players can choose from seven different factions to make up their decks. There is no limit to how many factions can be used or which ones can be mixed together to form their decks. However Heroic or Villainous Characters cannot be in play for one player at the same time. That player will have to choose one and discard the other if they mix human and horror decks.

Call of Cthulhu Story Card

The factions are:

The Agency – A group of police officers and citizens that specialize in combat. They do the grunt work and head bashing. This faction favors players that are aggressive and like to do damage.

Miskatonic University – The scholars and learned professors that are best at information gathering and a bit careless. They don’t do horror or combat well and rushing can get them into trouble. Great deck for card draw, quick investigation and “rushing” players.

The Syndicate – The seedy underbelly characters that always seem to know what is going on. They use their info to their advantage and compared to the horrors can seem like the good guys. This deck favors being sneaky and slowing down the opponents characters.

Cthulhu – The cult of the Great One himself. This cult is world wide, intertwined through out Earth’s history and specializes in terror and utter destruction. This cult isn’t always nice to each other so be careful when calling forth Cthulhu!

Hastur – He who shall not be named cultists are raving lunatics and deranged artists. This cult is full of people that love to spread the slow poison of terror and insanity. This deck favors control, cancellation and appeals to the slower, more defensive players.

Yog-Sothoth – The Gate Keeper of where the spheres meet. Its cultists help navigate the ways between the worlds allowing for returning cards from the players discard pile and searching for cards when needed.

Shub-Niggurath – The horrid Mother faction of the Black Goat of the Woods with One Thousand Young floods the play area with monsters of all levels. This deck is suited for “rushing” players who love to combat!

There is also a set of Neutral cards that can be used by both players.

Call of Cthulhu Story Card

There are five different types of cards in CoC. Story, Character, Support, Event and Conspiracy. All cards belong to one of the seven factions or are neutral. Cards marked with an * are Unique and each player may only have one copy in play at a time. Cards put into play are put in the ready position and exhausted (turned 90 degrees) when used. Any character that goes insane is flipped upside down in the exhausted position. Attached cards are destroyed when a Character leaves play.

Turn Sequences:

Refresh Phase – Each player can choose and restore one insane character by flipping it face-up but it still remains exhausted until the next turn. Each player then refreshes any exhausted cards and Domains.

Draw Phase – Each player draws two cards from their deck. During the first turn only, the first player only draws one card as part of the first player penalty.

Resource Phase – Each player may choose one card from their hand to place under a Domain of their choice. The card goes under the Domain Card and upside down so the only the resource symbol at the bottom can be seen. Once a card becomes a resource, it may not be used for anything else. There is no limit to the amount of resources a player may have or the amount of Domains. Once a Domain has been exhausted, then the player places a Domain Marker on it and it cannot be used again until the next round. Each Domain may only be used for one card per round.

Operations Phase – Players have the chance to play any Character and Support Cards from their hand face up in front of them in the play area as long as their have the resources available to pay for the card. To play a card or activate it, the player must exhaust a Domain to do so. Unless the card is neutral, the Domain used must have a resource match (a card from the same faction) to the card being played.

Call of Cthulhu Story Card

Story Phase – The active player now commits any ready Characters to the Story Card by exhausting them and placing them in front of the Story Card of their choice. Each Character may only support one Story Card each round.

After the active player commits, then the opponent may commit their Characters to a Story Card in which at least once Character has already been committed.

Call of Cthulhu Hydra Character Card

Now the players resolved the Story Cards. This is done in any order chosen by the active player. Each Story Card is resolved by the four icon struggles found on the left side of the card by comparing skill values.

1. Terror Struggle – This is the tentacle icon on the card. The player with the most tentacle icons wins this struggle. The losing player choices on Character Card committed to that struggle to go insane. Here Characters with the willpower keyword never go insane.

Combat Struggle – This is the skull icon on the card. The player with the most skull icons wins this challenge. The looser must choose one Character Card committed to this struggle and give them a wound token. Most Characters only take one damage and are destroyed. The toughness keyword comes into play here and allow a Character to receive more than one wound before being destroyed.

Arcane Struggle – This is the tome icon on the card. The winning player may ready an exhausted Character Card committed to this Story Card.

Investigation Struggle – This is the magnifying glass icon on the card. The winning player may immediately place a Success Token on the Story Card.

Determining success: The active player now determines if they have been successful. Add the combined skill values (number on the middle left side of card) of all remaining Character Cards committed to the Story Card. If this total is one or more than the opponents, then they may place a Success Token on the Story Card.

If the active player succeeded and the opponents skill level was zero or less, then the active player may place one additional Success Token on the Story Card as being unchallenged.

If the player wins the Story Card by having five or more tokens on it, they then may take it and immediately resolve its effects. If both players simultaneously win, then the active player takes it. If the active player wins more than one Story Card at the same time, the active player chooses in what order to take the Story Card and activate it’s effects.

Once a Story Card has been won, all tokens are removed and returned to the pool and a new Story Card is flipped over in its place.

Call of Cthulhu Spawn of Cthulhu Character Card

Conspiracy Cards:

Conspiracy Cards are played from the active players hand during the Operations Phase as a new Story Card in addition to the three Story Cards in play. These cards may also be used as Resource Cards attached to a players Domain. Each player may only have one Conspiracy Card in play at a time. If a players wins a Conspiracy Card it counts towards the players Story Card win total.

Keywords:

Fast: This keyword breaks ties during icon struggles. The player with the most Fast Characters committed to the Story Card takes this honor. A tie of zero is still zero and Fast has no effect on it.

Heroic/Villainous: A player cannon bring both into play at the same time (this includes card effects.) A player must discard one in order to play the other.

Invulnerability: Character Cards with this keyword can never be wounded or chosen to be wounded. They may still be destroyed by card effects.

Loyal: When a player wishes to play a Character Card with the Loyal keyword, they must drain a Domain that has enough resources of that cards faction to pay for the entire cost the card.

Steadfast: These cards have faction symbols in their tile. When a player drains a Domain to play a Steadfast Card, the player must have at least as many resources across all of their Domains to play that card as well the Resource Match.

Toughness: Character Cards with the Toughness keyword, may take additional wounds equal to X times. This may come from more than one source in which case the different cases stack.

Transient: The Transient keyword is accompanied by an arrow next to the resource icons and count as two resources when placed under a Domain. Once this Domain has been exhausted for what any reason, this card is destroyed and discarded.

Willpower: Characters with the Willpower keyword may never go insane either by effect or choice.

During each phase of play, each player my take actions by either using Character abilities or playing Event Cards and paying its cost. The active player always takes the first action each phase. No actions may be taken during the Resolve Story Card Phase until all three of the Story Cards have been resolved. All actions are taken one at a time, first by the active player and then with the opponents follow up action if that players chooses.

There are many different actions that happen such as Responses, Forced Response and Disrupts. In order for these to take effect obviously the card text and circumstances must align. These are described in the rulebook to greater detail.

Components: CoC component quality is top notch as it is a Fantasy Flight Game and they don’t skimp on quality. The artwork is taken from several other of the Arkham Horror series games and I am sure fresh new art was included. Of course the artwork is awesome and fits the genre perfectly. The cards are good quality, easy to read with the exception of the text at the bottom of the Story Cards which is a bit small to read easily. The board is solid, and small and is basically just chrome for the game, but I am all about chrome so its a nice touch.

CoC is a deck-building game that has a ton of depth to it which is no surprise as all of Fantasy Flights LCG’s are very good (I haven’t played Star Wars yet.) The Core Set might be a bit weak for the human player to start with at least until they get to know the cards and combos pretty well. CoC provides a good balance of the thematic element, strategy and a short playing time of 30 – 60 minutes which should be a big plus for many gamers. It’s a shame it isn’t more popular in the US as it is overseas as it is most certainly a very good game and should be in more players game collections. The wonderful feeling I get when playing thematically strong games like this always want to make me reach for these types of games first as for me the gaming experience seems more complete than just a good strategy game with a theme that doesn’t really matter if it is there or not. I love THEME and Fantasy Flight does it better than anyone else. If you are looking for a game that has great deck-building mechanics, great cards and effects and theme dripping from the start than this is the game for you.

Now is the time to get into this game if you don’t want to get behind on the expansions with Fatasy Flight having put our the “Deluxe Expansions” and there being only five of them. Deck-building games like this can get very expensive especially if the player is serious and tournament bound, but for the casual player, buying just the core set and seeing how you like it provides a fitting gaming experience with lots of theme, fun and discussion. From there adding the expansions should be easy and at the discretion of the what the player feels they need.

I will give this game about a 8.5 out of 10 stars as it brings a lot of depth, strategy and theme and it is certainly worth the price at $40. This game will never play the same so it’s re-playability is very, very high.

Haven Town is under attack! The Shadowrift has expelled hordes of monsters upon the town threatening total annihilation. The villagers are scrambling to defend their homes from Drow, Glacien, Zombies, Storm Lords, Necromancers, Demons and Fire Dragons. How will Haven Town survive? Who will step up and be the Heros of Haven Town? Do you have the skills, strategy and magic to protect Haven Town? You better hurry before Haven Town is full of corpses and everything is in flames.

With this review I am going to do things a bit different the reason being as that the rule book for this game is so bad I don’t even want to consult it for this review so I will tell you about my game experience instead.

Shadowrift is a game from first time game designer Jeremy K. Anderson and while his first attempt at the rule book fell short (as is to be expected for a first time designer) his game didn’t. Shadowrift is a completely different deck-building game experience than any other I have encountered and that is a good thing!

In Shadowrift the players have the job of working as a team to protect Haven Town from total destruction from the creatures clamoring through the Shadowrift hell bent on wiping out Haven Town and everyone in it. This game is a truly co-operative affair in which strategy is paramount to actually fend off the denizens and come out on top. In a typical deck-builder, you may have to have light interaction with other players with the exception of a few LCG’s (Living Card Games) from Fantasy Flight Games.

As the Heroes in Shadowrift not only are you attempting to build a strong and powerful deck to use but you are also fighting monsters as well as building a separate deck for Haven Town in which you may have infiltrators, monster effects or a town full of dead bodies that slow that decks effectiveness with junk or even frozen areas of town that have to be freed up in order for the villagers to be helping the heroes with special villager card powers or benefits they may tap into. So in effect you have a trifecta approach to deck-building that is completely new and unique in my experience. It provides all kinds of interesting situations for the Heroes to have to decide what to do and in what order.

Shadowrift Hero Cards

The game also comes with 6 different monster types that are basically scenarios for the Heroes to defend against and each one gives a completely different feel to the game. Not only is this very cool but it provides a ton of re-playability to the game. When paying $45.00 for a game, the last thing you want is to burnt out on it after a few plays due to already figuring out the strategy or it just not being deep enough to play over and over again providing a rich, rewarding gaming experience.

There are recommended cards for using with the 6 different monsters but you are not required to use them. The players may put together what ever cards into the purchasing area that the players feel make the most sense or have figured out what card combos work best through experience.

Experienced board gamers know that one of the dangers of playing a co-operative game is that sometimes you have that one person who likes to dominate the session and think that his strategies are the ones to use. They want to pick everyones moves for them and basically ruin the whole game experience for the other players. This game doesn’t stop that from happening, but if you can find a good group of people to play Shadowrift with you will have an amazing experience with it. It is a very solid game with great mechanics, lots of good game tension and decision making to do! The players have to figure out their roles and what cards are necessary to buy to defend Haven Town.

Shadowrift Monster Cards

One of great things about this game is in the village deck. If your village ever comes up showing 5 cards that are not villagers or walls then you lose the game! The monsters are great about killing off your villagers which in turn puts lots and lots of corpses in to the village deck and at a much faster pace than you think. This makes managing the village deck a serious priority. A great mechanic that adds a whole other level of depth and game play.

The players have wounds and/or burns when fighting the Fire Dragons that populate their decks and you get one of these for ever turn you attack or one per monster attacked. This of course clutters up your deck very fast and now you have to implement an additional strategy with card purchases or villagers to clear out your decks.

The Monsters win if the whole village is corpse ridden or no villagers appear at the beginning of the next turn or if the corpse deck runs out of corpses.

The players when when they seal all of the Shadowrifts that appear out of the monster deck or by building eight walls in the village.

This is currently one of my favorite deck-builders and I hope to see more expansions for this game as well as an updated rule book.

Ok so now for the bad stuff. As I mentioned earlier, the rule book is atrocious. I had to do hours of research on boardgamegeek.com to learn all the rules and what some the card effects, order of actions etc. I am still not sure what the pawn that comes in the game is for as I can’t find a reference to it anywhere so there maybe a part of the game play I am still missing. I know there are cards that effect whomever is holding the pawn but I am not sure how who holds the pawn is determined. So be prepared to do some research with this game.

When you open the game, it is not completely intuitive on how it breaks down into the card box for separation or ease of find cards. The cards should have come in order to break them down easily for the purchaser. There is no mention in the rule book how to do this properly.

There is also no reference in the rulebook as to how to set up the cards on the able. Since it’s release there are some player aids on boardgamegeek.com to show you how to do this.

There are 6 black tokens that come in the game that I have no idea what their use is for, so I have been using them as the seals on the Shadowrifts.

The cards are also a bit of an issue. The art on the game is great! However cards were already flaking on the corners after just one play. You will want to sleeve these cards if that matters at all to you.

The suite spot for this game is 4 to 5 players. Any less and you are going to have trouble dealing with all the monsters, village issues and wounds in your decks. This game has a lot going on!

I know it seems like there is a lot of negativity about this game but please bear with me. While the rule book could be (much) better and the cards are a bit flakey the game play itself is awesome. Shadowrift is one of the best games I have played in recent memory and every person who loves deck-builders should own it. Aside for a bit longer learning curve most players should intuitively understand the mechanics and be able to find what they are looking for rather easily on boardgamegeek.com for rules clarifications although my personal opinion of this is that should never have to happen. Publishers and designers need to become much better about their rule books.

So far there is minor talk of a 2nd Ed. game but date yet and at that time obviously a much better rule book should be included.

I am giving Shadowrift an 8.5 out of 10 stars for game play but a 6 out of 10 for the trouble of having to learn the game everywhere other than the rule book it’s self.

Entering the chamber, the companions carefully survey the room. A large, square room with a stone floor and on the other side a chest, out in the open, a little to out in the open. The companions know it won’t be that easy and make preparations to get across the room. Wizard, Warrior, Rogue and Cleric pit their experience and expertise against the dungeon. Will they recover the treasure? Will they spring a trap? Why are there no monsters?

In Dungeon Heroes, one player controls 4 Heroes adventuring on their quest for treasure. The other player controls the dungeon and determines where the treasures lie and any traps lying in wait for the possibly unfortunate adventurers. The Heroes consist of the mighty Warrior, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard have to work together and use their cunning to beat the Dungeon Lord and capture 3 of the 4 treasures on the board. Once the Heroes capture 3 of the 4 treasures, they automatically win and the Dungeon Lord wins if he is able to slay all 4 Heroes during their quest.

Players decide who is going to be the Heroes and the Dungeon Lord. The Hero player takes his board, dice and 4 Hero figurines and places the figurines on the 4 starting squares however they choose. The Dungeon Lord places the Vault Chest Treasure Tile on the blank square in the treasure vault. Only one Treasure Tile can be placed here. A Hero may acquire any Treasure Tile by simply moving on to it.

The Dungeon Lord with various Monster, Trap, Treasure, Artifact and Movement Tiles then populates their draw pile. These are placed face down in a stack on the Dungeon Lords side of the board. All extra tiles are removed from the game face down so no one knows what they are.

Dungeon Heroes Contents

The first player is the Dungeon Lord and both players must take 4 actions each and every round unless only one Hero is left standing. The Dungeon Lord must play tiles as long as they are able too until either they run out or are not able to play another tile. This is called the Passive Phase. Once all the tiles are played then the Dungeon Lord enters the Aggressive Phase and may start to reveal the tiles and/or spend actions with the revealed monsters.

The Hero has two actions per Hero and exhausts each Hero after both actions are used. No more than to actions per Hero may be taken per turn.

The Dungeon Player

Turn Overview – Passive Phase

The Dungeon Player takes 4 random tiles and places them face down on the game board. They cannot be stacked nor placed on a square with that a Hero occupies.

Monster Tiles – When a Hero moves onto a Monster Tile, the Heroes health is reduced by the number listed in the red heart on the tile. A Hero does not take additional damage for remaining on this tile. The tile is not replaced with a Monster Figurine until the Aggressive Phase.

You have other tiles that like the Trap Tiles that do the damage listed on it once a Hero moves onto it. Shifting Floor Tiles, Portal Tiles and Trap Tiles are all removed from the game once a Hero moves onto them.

Artifact Tiles are great for the Heroes. Once a Hero moves onto the Artifact Tile, it is removed from the board and then placed next to the Hero Board that picked it up. An artifact doesn’t have to be used right away. A Hero may hold more than one artifact at a time. Heroes may also pass artifacts to other Heroes if they are adjacent to each other. If a Hero dies while holding artifacts, the artifacts are left on that spot on the board and are stackable. Artifact Tiles are one use only.

This phase starts the Monster Tiles being revealed and replaced with Monster Figurines. This cost no actions for the Dungeon Lord. During the Dungeon Lord’s turn, they must take four actions in any combination from the following options.

No more than any one action can be taken for any one Monster in a single turn.

Flip over and reveal any face down Dungeon Tile that is not occupied by a Monster Figurine.

Move/Attack with a Monster.

Monster can only move one square orthogonally except for goblins. Goblins may move orthogonally and diagonally.

Monsters may not occupy the same square.

Monsters may move onto a square with a Hero.

Monsters can attack Heroes on their square or adjacent Heroes.

Monsters get a free attack on Heroes that just moved adjacent to that Monster.

Monsters do not reveal face down Dungeon Tiles.

Monsters do not trigger Dungeon Tiles.

Monsters may move on the Starting Area and Treasure Vault spaces.

The Hero Player

Turn Overview – During the Hero players turn the player must take any combination of the following four options:

Any Hero may take no more than two actions in a single turn.

If only one Hero is left in play, than that Hero may only take two actions.

Heroes cannot occupy the same square.

Heroes may move onto a square occupied by a Monster Tile/Figurine.

Heroes may move onto a square with no Dungeon Tile.

Heroes must deal with the effect of any tile they move onto. Face down tiles must be revealed.

Heroes that move onto a tile that has a Monster Figurine on it, must address the Monster first then the tile itself.

Heroes may move on the Starting Area and Treasure Vault spaces.

The Heroes come with the following traits:

The Warrior –

10 maximum health.

Moves orthogonally.

Slays Monsters without taking damage by moving onto their square.

The Cleric –

8 maximum health.

Moves orthogonally.

May spend on action to heal two health points to self or adjacent Hero.

The Rogue –

6 maximum health.

Moves orthogonally and diagonally.

Disarms traps without taking damage by moving on the tile.

The Wizard –

4 maximum health.

Moves orthogonally and diagonally.

May spend an action to reveal any facedown tile not occupied by a Monster Figurine.

Dungeon Heroes Hero Figurines

The Dungeon Heroes components are outstanding. Designer Michael Coe has done a great job with all the pieces and custom dice that he included as a bonus to the game. The figurines are original looking, wooden and very, very cool. The tiles and board are tick and very durable. The artwork is incredible and the game even came with extra plastic bags to store the pieces in. My only complaint here is the rules aren’t very clear when it comes to combat. It would be nice to see an errata or something to address some of the rules issues.

The game play is much deeper than I thought going in to this game. It is definitely a strategy game that is surprisingly thought provoking in the variable actions to be taken. It is harder than you’d expect and deliciously fun. Just know that only the Warrior Hero can kill Monsters unless someone is equipped with the Sword Artifact Tile, which is a one-time use. The solo variant included with Dungeon Heroes is also great fun and pretty hard to beat.

If you are looking for a solid two-player game that takes a good amount of strategy, then I highly recommend this game. You would be hard pressed to find a better dungeon themed game for the money.

Dungeon Heroes Expansions

The expansions for Dungeon Heroes have been released as well and I am sure will add another level of complexity to this fun little dungeon romp.

I will give this game 8 out of 10 stars as it has a great feel and a good amount of strategy for such a little game.

Tenzi is a quick paced dice game that is great for families, quick games while waiting for your friends to show up or to close out a heavy evening of gaming.

Publisher: Carma Games, LLC

Players: 2-4

Ages: all ages

Playing Time: 5 – 10 minutes

Contents: 40 d6, 4 different colors, 10 of each color

Suggested Retail Price: 14.95

Parental Advisory: Safe for kids

I was walking around the ASTRA convention in Nashville, TN a few weeks ago when I came across the booth for Tenzi. I stopped and played with three other people and was impressed at how fun it is. I left with a review copy and so here we are now.

I have had the chance to play this game several times now with multiple people and each time I really have fun. You can play this game is so many different ways that it’s always fresh, fun and quick game that provides a good amount of laughs. You can all go for the same number say 5, and see who rolls all 5’s first. You can pick two, three or even 6 numbers and see who the first to roll all ten dice to get through each number first. You can stack a tower as you roll the numbers etc… There are a lot of different ways to play Tenzi which makes it fun and more fun than you would think. There is even a good amount of table talk about technique for rolling dice! My daughter who is 10 years old, loves this game and wants to play it all the time now.

There isn’t much to this game. 40 six sided die and a rules sheet so the components are not really an issue.

Based on the simplicity of this game I am going to rate it 6 out 10 stars but please don’t let that seem like it’s not a good game. It is a fun game that is just really simple. There is nothing deep about it as far as strategy goes but sometimes simple is best.

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation—the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.
In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

The Hangout for this book will take place on August 2nd, 2013 at 7:30pm CST.